I haven’t been this nervous since seventh grade, when as captain of my debating team, I had to go before the school. I’m sure I feigned a sore throat that morning in an effort to stay home, and I’m sure my mother made me go. It was too important, something like “The Cuban Missile Crisis,” and I know I felt the weight of the world riding on my performance.
Now here I am, hours before the second presidential debate, beside myself again. And I have every confidence in my candidate. It’s not that. It’s that with so much at stake, the content of this debate is going to be shaped by people who cannot make up their minds.
Really? As a nation with one of the most critically important decisions to make, we fill the hall with undecideds? When was the last time you had an important decision to make? Did you call upon undecided people for help?
That’s what it’s like out there right now. All the emphasis is on the undecided or mixed-up states. What if you are not in a mixed up state? What if you are not a mixed up voter? We hardly matter anymore. Many of us have a pretty good idea of what we envision for our country, and suddenly, this election is no longer in our hands.
I have to get going…. the stage is all set at Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York. I can feel my old familiar bellyache, or was it a sore throat? The candidates tonight will be playing to a selected group of eighty-two uncommitted voters seated on stage, while the “general audience” sits up on rafters, in the cheap seats, in the dark. The candidates have been coached not to make eye contact with the general audience. It’s much like a microcosm of society right now. So many of us with little to do for the next three weeks but hang here in the dark, and check the daily tracking polls morning, noon and night.
a little elbow room
a little elbow room 
Totally agree with your thoughts about the undecided voter. Personally, I can’t comprehend how one can still be undecided after 2+ years of electioneering and campaigning. Especially when the candidates present such contrasts in terms of what they think and want to do. And the undecideds are certainly NOT the folks I want to listen to for their current thoughts and advice…….
I know. Maybe what we want to say is: vote if you are passionate about it!
My teeth are chattering still. And my stomach is queezy. I’m with you, Kim.
Pingback: View from the Rafters « therestlessnest
Yea seems we have a “binder” full of undecideds…. I actually believe there are no undecideds out there. It is all a bunch of people that are looking for attention, or… brain-dead.
I confess to being an undecided. I voted for Barack and was actually selected and attended the state caucus to vote. I worked very hard the first time around to get him into office. I refuse to support Romney so it’s not that I am undecided about voting for him; I won’t. However, there are other candidates. I fully understand that Barack was given an unfair task with whom he had to work with in office for making progress. However, the progress’ that have been made are a bit scary to me. There have been a load of drone killings. Barack is a big fan of drones. I am not a fan of drones at all. I feel like we are getting terrifyingly close to what was supposed to be a fictional story 1984. I guess I am feeling that I am passionate about voting. I just wish I had the confidence I did 4 yrs ago that change is possible. No tv and no land line does mean though that we have a bit of a buffer to the endless calls and ads that small fortunes are being spent on that could feed and house people that are without.
I don’t approve of the use of drones either.
And it’s not just the undecided-it’s Republican manuplitiobn of voter registration-We should all worry alot about Florida again-just like Bush vs Gore,the new person in charge makes the old one look like Mary Poppins acording to Link Tv. Expect the corporation hired to tabulate the polls to be manipulating the polls too. Can everyone say “Chads”!!!!!!!!!!